Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 2074 contributions
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Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Portfolio Question Time
Meeting date: 23 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
Not only will the ambitious net zero targets set by the Scottish Government require to be funded; the frameworks need to be developed, too. That cannot be done in isolation without consideration, by those with the full fiscal levers, of what measures could be utilised. Given the scale of the challenge and the fact that the majority of green tax powers are reserved to the UK Government, does the cabinet secretary share my concern at the recent Westminster Public Accounts Committee report, which noted that the UK
“Government has no clear plan for how the transition to net Zero will be funded”?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
In terms of policy change or devising new policies, as you set out, what underpinning further detail do you have? Have you gone as far as developing policies to support people?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
People will look at changing existing taxes or bringing in new taxes. Our discussion today suggests that changes to taxes are more likely. What information, policies and focus do you have in place to support that?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
That would be great to know, too.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
Good morning, minister. I have a couple of short questions. When I read through the framework for tax, I asked myself what word jumped into my head to describe how I felt about it, and it was probably “unobjectionable”. It does what it says on the tin—the Scottish tin, as Liz Smith said.
To pick up on a comment from the deputy convener, at an overarching level, what specific and measurable difference will the framework make? There is little to object to in it, and there is clarification. The deputy convener asked about a more detailed level but, in general terms, how will you know that it has been a success?
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
I can see how the principles, with the two additions, provide the possibility of such a discussion.
Addressing tax avoidance is close to my heart, and you are correct to point it out. House of Commons research on tax avoidance from the last quarter of last year shows that the figure involved is £35 billion a year. We do not know what that equates to in Scottish terms, but that is obviously a huge concern.
Alex Doig may well need to answer this. What is the structure in the Scottish Government—rather than local authorities or whatever—to ensure that there is a focus on tax avoidance? How many full-time-equivalent staff do you have to look at the issue? Does a department head up that work? What management accountability is there? I would appreciate a bit more information about how that functions in the Government, given the importance of the issue.
Finance and Public Administration Committee
Framework for Tax
Meeting date: 22 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
Yes. I am trying to determine the link between regarding the principle as important and translating that into real spend or accountabilities in relation to Revenue Scotland and so on. How does that flow through? It strikes me that there is a possibility that we might be saying something nice but not necessarily translating it into real resource or a real focus. I am trying to get more of a sense of that.
Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)
Subsidy Control Bill
Meeting date: 17 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
Will the member give way?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
National Strategy for Economic Transformation
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
I was interested in what you and Gary Gillespie said about exports and evidence of impacts that is still to emerge. Perhaps inadvertently, Gary gave a very good explanation and reminder of why proximity in relation to trade is vital. I understand that we will see the global impacts of the geopolitics that is going on unfold, but in relation to proximity impacts and our trade with Europe, do you have a sense, in numerical terms, of the additional costs that have been incurred as a result of Brexit? How will those additional costs impact on the development of resilience in supply chains? Brexit is on-going and is important in relation to proximity. Do you have any further reflections on that?
Economy and Fair Work Committee
Scottish National Investment Bank
Meeting date: 16 March 2022
Michelle Thomson
I want to pick up on another issue that we touched on earlier: that of risk relative to innovation, which is one of your guiding mantras. It almost seems counterintuitive that, at present, when geopolitics is in a state of flux, there is a requirement for more innovation, including with regard to net zero.
How confident are you that you have landed it just right in the current climate? As you alluded to, if you only ever invested in Government bonds, you would always get a guaranteed return. There is a sweet spot, which I regard as quite challenging, given the nature of how the bank is set up and structured. Not everybody necessarily understands how that translates into risk appetite, and it is not all that common for parliamentarians to understand risk appetite. Do you have any further reflections, in the light of the current state of geopolitics?
